Where do we go from here?
by pekkii
Summary: Childhood friends, Edward and Bella have remained, just that. Friends since childhood. But what happens when one developed feelings for the other?
1. Chapter 1

I was sitting quietly on the couch, trying to watch a movie. But of course that was impossible when living with a guy. More specifically Edward Cullen. He would roll his eyes and scoff at the cheesier lines delivered by the actors on screen and when he wasn't doing that, he would throw popcorn at me. So much for watching a movie in peace.

Let be back up a bit. Edward and I had been best friends since the first grade. We bonded over our mutual love of cartoons and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Since then, we became inseparable (in a platonic, brother/sister relationship) ending up in the same city for college, and to save money (because students are notoriously poor) moved in together. He was now working at a law firm part time, and I was also completing an internship at a Public Relations consultancy, and was a part time barista.

"Would you stop that please?"

"This movie sucks ass. Can we please watch something else? I'm so close to wanting to stab myself in the eyes out of boredom."

I stuck my tongue out at him. I know, I am the epitome of maturity.

"Real mature Bella."

I rolled my eyes and continued to watch my movie, hoping that ignoring him would make him less annoying. Of course, that was not the case.

"Bella, please! We've watched your movies for the past week. I wanna watch something being blown up. Not some pussy whipped guy chasing some girl around town. If guys were to do this in real life, you'd mock the shit out of them."

He was right. But I refused to give in.

When he saw that I wouldn't respond, he resorted to tacking me on the couch, pinning my arms above my head with one of his hands, and tickling me with the other.

"Fine! Fine! Stop, please!" I said in between fits of laughter. "Do what you want!"

He stopped and looked into my eyes. "Are you just saying that, or are you being serious?"

"Yeah. Watch your movie, I have work to do anyway."

"You're not upset are you?"

"Not at all. Now let me go before you make me fail this semester."

He laughed, and sat up, giving me his hand so he could help me up.

"By the way, Maria is coming over. She's always complaining that we never do things together so she's invited herself over. Do you mind?"

Yes. Yes I did. But I could never say that to him. As much as I hated her, she seemed to make Edward happy, so who was I to judge.

"Sure. Just make sure to keep the noise down." I said, ruffling his hair. He swatted my hands away, while I ran up the stairs running.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Oh god."

Thump

"YES!"

Thump

I woke up, completely disoriented, to moaning and thumping. It took me a second to realise what that noise was, and to realise that we weren't being robbed, but Edward and Maria were clearly enjoying themselves. I sat up, and looked down at my work. I managed to establish some strategies for the new social media campaign my consultancy was working on, and must have fallen asleep. And with the noise coming from the room across the hall, I knew that I wasn't going to get anything else done. I sighed, packed up my desk and went downstairs.

After putting together a light midnight snack, I sat down in front of my computer to check my emails, when I heard light padding coming down the stairs. I turned around, expecting it to be Edward, but instead saw Maria.

"Hey."

"Hello." She said coolly, before walking past me to the sink to get herself glass of water. Okay then. We weren't going to have a heart to heart. I ignored her and continued looking at emails.

"He loves me you know."

I looked up. Was she really talking to me about this?

"Good for you."

"Yeah. It is."

"Yup."

"So don't try to interfere."

This really got my attention.

"You think that I'm trying to break the two of you up?"

"I know that you don't like me. And he's always with you."

Was this girl serious?! "Because we live together."

She tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Whatever."

Great comeback! Jeez, could he not find someone with more that two brain cells knocking about in the head of hers?

"Hey, there you are. Come back upstairs."

She turned to look at Edward, smirked at me, and practically skipped back up to Edward's room.

"You should keep her on a leash."

"Mmm. Kinky. There's something we haven't done before."

I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to gag. Trust him to turn anything into an innuendo. I shut my laptop and turned to walk up the stairs.

"Goodnight Edward. And please try to keep it down."

His laughter was the last thing I heard before I shut my door.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"So how did your pitch go? Did they go for it?"

I was brunching (how I hated that word. And I hated the fact that I had become one of _those_ people) with my college friend Rosalie. We were both in our second year of studying Public Relations. We were pushed together to work on a massive assignment, and we constantly butted heads. I guess that's how we became friends.

"I think it went okay. There was a moron who was on his phone the entire pitch, but everyone else seemed to like what I presented. I guess I'll have to wait and see."

"I'm sure you did a great job! You always do. And to celebrate, brunch is on me."

"Rose…"

"Stop complaining. I'm richer and prettier that you, get over it." She said, with a mocking smile.

"Fine. But I'm paying for the next one."

Rose scoffed. We both knew that that wasn't true. She found a way to pay for everything we did together. She was generous in a really aggressive way. But she was the sweetest person I ever met.

Just as I was about to respond with something snarky, I heard by phone ringing from my bag. I picked it up and was greeted with Edward's voice.

"Hey gorgeous. How was the pitch?" This was the routine in our friendship. He would always call after every pitch I presented, despite knowing that we never got an immediate response in the work of PR.

"Good. I went, I talked, I conquered."

He was laughing from the other end of the line.

"That's great. What are you doing tonight? We should do dinner to celebrate. Are we eating in or out?"

I tried to hold back my snicker. Again with the innuendos.

"In. I still have some work to do for a presentation for school. Sound good?"

"Perfect. I'm working till 7, so I'll stop and pick something up on my way home."

"Alright. See you tonight. Bye."

"By gorgeous."

When I hung up the phone, I looked up to find Rose smirking at me.

"What?"

"You love him."

"WHAT?!"

"You so do! I can see it all over your face."

I rolled my eyes.

"We're friends, that's all."

"Right. Friends." I didn't like the way she put quotation marks around the word, friends. But that was Rose, she was always reading into things.

"We are, and he's with Maria."

She waved her hand dismissively.

"We can easily get rid of her."

I laughed. She made her sound so insignificant.

"She's his girlfriend. I will not become one of those people who break up a friend's relationship. That's stupid and tacky."

She sighed. "Fine. We'll do it your way. You're no fun."

I shrugged my shoulder and continued to eat my eggs. But would it be so bad to get rid of Maria?


	2. Chapter 2

Classes were done for the day, and I was making my way home when I got an email informing me that while the client had gone for the pitch, they wanted to deal with someone more 'seasoned'. I should be used to this by know, but it still hurt to know that the clients still thought of me as inexperienced. I was working in the consultancy for the last year. I worked harder then most of the permanent employees there, and I was the one being snubbed.

I threw all my belongings into my car, and let out a frustrated sigh. Just as I was about to message Edward to bail in dinner, my phone started ringing in my hand.

"Hey gorgeous. What do you feel like eating tonight? I was thinking Chinese, but then I passed this awesome little Italian place on the way home, so I was thinking…"

"Edward?"

"Yeah?"

I was trying really hard to hold back the tears that were threatening to escape. "Do you mind if I just spend tonight alone? Go out with Maria, or your brother. I wont be much fun tonight."

"Why? What happened?"

"The client went for my pitch, they just decided to use someone with more experience."

"I'm sorry Bells."

"Yeah. Its fine. This is why you should do something else. I'm just being a Debbie Downer."

"I'm on my way home now."

"Edward…."

"Bella, being alone right now isn't the best idea right now. We'll just chill out at home, finish a whole bottle of wine, and talk about it. Sound good?"

"Okay."

"See you soon."

**x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

The first thing I did when I got home was take a bath. As clichéd and girly as that sounded (especially when experiencing such high emotional drama), it really did relax me. What wasn't as relaxing was Rose bursting into the bathroom two seconds after I had just stepped into the tub.

"Nope! Not happening!" She yelled, going around the room and blowing out all of my candles.

"Jeez. Way to kill the mood. And so what if I just want to wallow in misery for a while?"

"Bella, how many times have we been over this?''

"Enough times to know that you don't really have to lecture me while I'm naked in the tub!"

She just rolled her eyes. "Get up and get dressed. We're going out."

"Going out usually involves a celebration of some kind. I highly doubt that in my situation there's anything to celebrate."

"I'm giving you five minutes. If you're not out by then, I pull you out by your hair." She said, turning back into my room and looking through my shoe closet.

That alone made me leave the bathroom in record time. She was forever claiming that we were the same size, and certain pairs were always missing from my closet.

"I'm out. Now what?"

Rose was interrupted by loud banging coming from the kitchen.

"I don't care! She's my friend and she could use someone that she could talk to right now!"

Rose and I got as close to the kitchen as possible to eavesdrop of his conversation. From the sounds of it, Maria wasn't too happy with the fact that he wanted to spend time with me tonight.

Of course, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to sneeze. Which resulted in Edward turning to glare at me. Brilliant.

"Let me call you ba…" he was cut off by, what I assumed, was Maria hanging up on him. Typical.

I waved at him from behind the wall.

"How's it hanging Eddie?"

He scowled at me.

"You know I hate that nickname. And you're awfully chipper for someone who called me in tears not even ten minutes ago."

"Rose threatened bodily harm if I stayed home and wallowed in misery. So we're going out apparently. Yay!" I said, sarcastically.

"Want to come? From the sounds of your phone call, which I wasn't listening to, you could use a good stiff drink."

I saw him about to interrupt me, to make some sort of lewd comment, no doubt, but cut him off.

He sighed. "You're always ruing my fun Bells. But yeah, I'll come with you guys. Give me fifteen minutes."

**x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

Half an hour later, he were standing in line waiting to get into some new club, with some equally pretentious name. Blanca? Mauve? Named after some sort of colour? I could never remember. What I did remember was that I hated going out. Getting dressed up required something that showcased your boobs and/or ass, and then having to wait a good hour in the freezing cold to get into the place. Once in, there was an even longer wait to get a drink at the bar. So yeah. What a great way to spend a night. I was growing to hate Rose more and more every second.

"See isn't this fun!" She yelled over the loud bass coming out of the club.

"Just super. How much longer to we have to wait? I feel like I'm going to lose a tit to frostbite." I mumbled.

"Not long now. I just talked to the bouncer. A friend of a friend. We're in." Edward said, grabbing both Rose's and mine arm and dragging us into the club. What Edward also failed to mention was that he also knew the club owner, which meant that we were then ushered into one of the VIP booths with table service provided. Huh. Maybe tonight wouldn't be so bad.

**x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x**

After one too many glasses of whatever alcohol I was drinking (something fruity and highly alcoholic, always a good combination) I was starting to feel a little better.

"Hey Rose! Thanks for doing this. I really needed it." I yelled, knocking back the dregs of my drink. I was feeling buzzed. What was I even so upset about anyway?

"No problem. I always look out for my girls." She yelled back, raising her drink.

"And who's that gorgeous man making his way up here?"

We both turned to see an extremely burly man. Exactly Rose's type. This could end badly. Rose and alcohol rarely end well.

"This is Emmett. He owns the club." Edward got up to do that weird man fist bump/man hug thing and introduced us to him. As per usual, the guy took a particular interest in Rose, and two seconds later, they were 'dancing'. I use that term loosely, as they were just getting each other worked up. I'd give it wot more minutes before they left together.

"Wanna dance?" Edward pulled me from my thoughts. And my drink and pretty much dragged me onto the dance floor, where we proceeded to put Rose and Emmett to shame. I was really starting to feel the effects of the alcohol, and all I wanted to do was go home. I opened my mouth to tell Edward as such. In response, he kissed me.


End file.
